Members of the al - Qaeda terrorist group have reportedly taken over a town in Yemen’s southern province of Abyan amid the continuing Saudi war that has thrown the country into chaos. Al-Qaeda militants seized control of the town of Ahwar, located more than 250 kilometers (155 miles) southeast of the capital, Sana’a, on Saturday morning, and slaughtered a number of militiamen loyal to fugitive former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi there, Yemen Press news website reported. The report added that the al-Qaeda extremists have set up a number of checkpoints across the town, and also taken control of several government buildings there. The development came on the same day that Saudi military aircraft carried out aerial strikes against a residential neighborhood in the Sirwah district of Yemen’s central province of Ma’rib, leveling seven buildings to the ground. There were no immediate reports of possible casualties. . On Friday, two children lost their lives and another sustained
injuries when artillery rounds fired by Saudi military forces hit a densely-populated area in Yemen’s southern province of Ta’izz. Elsewhere, in the Qa’atabah district of the southern province of Dhale, a child was critically wounded after Saudi-backed mercenaries opened fire indiscriminately in an outdoor market. Meanwhile, the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations (UN) in Yemen has slammed the lack of international attention to the nearly year-long conflict in Yemen.